Alex Trebek at a book signing in New York City in 1990 (Ron Galella / Getty)When Alex Trebek began hosting Jeopardy, Ronald Reagan was in his first term, Ghostbusters was a recent box-office hit, and most Millennials hadn’t been born yet. Now, after nearly four decades, his time behind the podium is done. Trebek, a TV icon, died over the weekend from pancreatic cancer that he was diagnosed with a year and a half ago.
Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. One of American culture’s most cherished traditions is for a mix of young and old people from different households to sit close together and share food in a poorly ventilated space without masks on for an extended period of time. It’s called Thanksgiving.This year, the holiday season is laced with danger.
Donald Trump announced early this morning that he had tested positive for the coronavirus. Details are still emerging about his condition—so far, he has reportedly exhibited only minor symptoms of COVID-19—but his diagnosis illustrates the dangers of disregarding the virus’s threat: The president has routinely downplayed it, which has inspired many of his supporters to do the same.
Last night’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden started off placidly enough, with each candidate delivering a measured, coherent answer to a question about the current Supreme Court vacancy. That sense of coherence lasted about five minutes.What followed was shambolic—a disorienting, exasperating medley of half-thoughts, interjections, raised voices, and simultaneous monologues broken up occasionally by brief periods of uninterrupted speech.
In her 87 and a half years, Ruth Bader Ginsburg left a significant mark on law, on feminism, and, late in her life, on pop culture. She also left a significant mark on everyday life in America, helping broaden the sorts of families people are able to make and the sorts of jobs they’re able to take. Her legacy is, in a way, the lives that countless Americans are able to live today.
The writer Anne Helen Petersen’s new book is primarily about “burnout,” a condition endemic to the Millennial generation that she describes as a persistent “sensation of dull exhaustion” and “the feeling that you’ve optimized yourself into a work robot.” Expanding on a widely read BuzzFeed News article from two years ago, Petersen follows lines of cultural and economic inquiry in an effort to identify the root causes of this generational malaise.
(Gueorgui Pinkhassov / Magnum)The pandemic has rendered many activities unsafe, but thankfully it can’t stop us from fantasizing about them. A common balm that people reach for is the sentence construction “When this is over, I’m going to ____.” It seems to help, if only in a fleeting way, for them to imagine all of the vacations they’ll go on, all of the concerts they’ll attend, and all of the hugs they’ll give, as soon as they’re able to.
Americans are five months deep in a historic economic crisis. From February to April, the country’s unemployment rate shot up from , “That extra $600 is what’s been keeping us alive.”But then the support stopped. The additional $600 of weekly assistance expired in late July, and the one-off stimulus payments are at this point “a relic of history” for many families, Mattingly told me.
During the past five months, many prognosticators have prognosticated about how the coronavirus pandemic will transform politics, work, travel, education, and other domains. Less sweepingly, but just as powerfully, it will also transform the people who are living through it, rearranging the furniture of their inner life. When this is all over—and perhaps even long after that—how will we be different?For one thing, we’ll better understand the importance of washing our hands.
Editor’s Note: The Atlantic is making vital coverage of the coronavirus available to all readers. Find the collection here. Throughout the pandemic, one lodestar of public-health advice has come down to three words: Do things outside. For nearly five months now, the outdoors has served as a vital social release valve—a space where people can still eat, drink, relax, exercise, and worship together in relative safety.
Across the country, schools have outlined the precautions they’ll take as they reopen their campuses this fall. If and when kids return, schools are planning outdoor “mask breaks” in Denver, one-way hallways in Northern Virginia, and shortened in-person school weeks in New York City, among many, many other safeguards against coronavirus outbreaks.Included in these reopening plans are a number of measures whose implementation will fall to students themselves.
Three variables determine the fluctuations of a country’s population: births, deaths, and migration flows. The coronavirus pandemic is disrupting all three.The forces that have begun acting on America’s population are dramatic departures from the norm. Every year for the past 100 years, the population of the United States has grown. During that time, though, its growth rate has slowed as birth rates have fallen.
A lot has changed these past couple of weeks. As protesters have gathered following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police in late May, the Black Lives Matter movement has rapidly gained public support. Seizing or at least reading the moment, politicians, companies, and organizations have announced a flurry of new policies and revised positions intended to address structural racism.
Roger Williams Jr. was 10 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. It was 1968, and the assassination prompted chaos, uprisings, and fires across the country, including in his own Chicago neighborhood. “At the time, as a kid, you didn’t understand it,” Williams, now 62, told me.
Roger Williams Jr. was 10 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. It was 1968, and the assassination prompted chaos, uprisings, and fires across the country, including in his own Chicago neighborhood. “At the time, as a kid, you didn’t understand it,” Williams, now 62, told me.